April 12, 2011: Celebrating 50 Years of Manned Space Travel

In the midst of my ongoing blogs about all things Easter, I would like to note an important event in a wholly different sphere.  April 12 is the 50th anniversary of manned space travel!  As many of us were growing up, space programs in the US and Russia produced a series of amazing men, heroes really,who were willing to go where no man had gone before, using technologies untried, facing dangers which could only be imaged.

In the stories of Russian Yuri Gargarin and American Alan Shepard, two of the earliest space travelers, we find facts much more interesting than fiction.

Yuri Gagarin, b. 1934.
Soviet Cosmonaut,
First man to orbit earth.
Wikipedia photo.

First Man to Orbit the Earth  On April 12, 1961, fifty years ago, at 9:07AM Moscow time, Major Yuri Gagarin of the Soviet Union lifted off to become the first man to orbit the earth.  In a small one-man capsule, Gagarin shot for 108 minutes around the earth at 18,000 miles per hour.  His mission was named the Vostok 1, after the spacecraft that was catapulted into space from the steppes of Kazakhstan.  A note to cause a slight shudder in your heart:  the Vostok was a converted ICBM (InterContinental Ballistic Missile!)  And Gagarin got on board nonetheless.

Although the Vostok 1 craft was designed to fly under pilot control, during the mission it actually operated automatically.  This was due, at least in part, to the fact that there was no data at the time about the effects of weightlessness on human beings.  Doctors and administrators were uncertain how Gagarin would respond to space, and were concerned that he could not control the spacecraft.

Vostok 1,
Russian spacecraft Gagarin on
his historical orbital flight.
Cnet News photo.

The flight did not go smoothly.   Gagarin's capsule was attached to an equipment module during the flight.  At reentry, however, the two pods were supposed to separate, so that Gagarin's capsule could land safely.  Unfortunately, the tandem pods did not detach.  Instead, they went into a 10-minute uncontrolled tumble, until electrical wires holding the two modules together burned through, and they finally separated.  Then, according to plan, Gagarin ejected from the capsule, opened his parachute, and floated down for a safe landing.

Unfortunately, after he had unhooked himself from the parachute, Gagarin looked around and found no one waiting for him.  That is because he had landed 200 miles from his targeted landing point.  Sadly, he had to trudge off to find someone to take him to a phone to call mission control!  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/8416561/Soviet-Union-lied-about-1961-Yuri-Gagarin-space-mission.html

Russian Ruble
commemorating Yuri Gagarin,
issued in 2001.
Wikipedia photo.

Yuri Gagarin became a Russian hero.  In 1962 he went on to serve as a Deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, and later worked in spacecraft design.  In 1967 he was named the backup pilot for the Soyuz 1 mission. Like many Russian programs of the time,  Soyuz 1 was a secret project, possibly designed to hook-up with another craft in space.  Unfortunately, the Soyuz 1 crashed while attempting to land, killing its commander Vladimir Komarov, who became the first confirmed inflight fatality in the history of spaceflight.  After this event, the Russians banned Gagarin from further training and participation in spaceflights, in order to protect him.

Gagarin went on to re-qualify as a fighter pilot.  In March, 1968 he was killed on a training flight, and his ashes were buried in the walls of the Kremlin.

Freedom 7, May 5, 1961,

America Enters the Manned Space Race Less than a month after Gagarin's historical April 12 flight, the United States launched its Freedom 7 Mission, in which Alan Shepard made a sub-orbital flight at an altitude of 115 miles and downrange about 302 miles.  During its 14.8 minute flight, the capsule attained a speed of 5,100 miles/hour.  http://www.spacetoday.org/Astronauts/Animals/SubOrbitalFlights.html

Alan Shepard, 1923-1998,
US Astronaut,
Wikipedia photo

Shepard's achievement was notable for many reasons, but two are generally stated: 1)  He maneuvered the Freedom 7 space capsule manually, rather than relying on automation; and 2) He rode the capsule through a planned splashdown at sea, that was recovered live on television and watched by millions around the world.

Alan Shepard was also remembered for his witty repartee by Gene Kranz in his book Failure is Not an Option.  "When reporters asked Shepard what he thought as he sat atop the Redstone rocket, waiting for liftoff, he had replied, 'The fact that every part of this ship was built by the low bidder.'"

Alan Shepard raising American
flag on the moon, Apollo 14
Mission, 1971.

For the 10 years after Freedom 7, Shepard was plagued by a lack of equilibrium brought on by an inner ear problem.  Although he couldn't fly, he was Chief of the Astronaut Office, which coordinated, scheduled and controlled all astronaut programs.  In 1971, after surgical correction of his ear problem, Shepard was named to lead the Apollo XIV mission to be moon.  He was 47 years old.

Pictures of him and Edgar Mitchell cavorting in the low-gravity lunar environment, shooting golf balls into the distance, and riding the Lunar Excursion Module entered America's collective memory. By the time Shepard retired from the Navy and NASA in 1974, he had attained the rank of Rear Admiral. http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/she0bio-1